As you may have seen this week, the battery’s in Jason’s Changli electric cart thing were entirely boned. So he did the only sensible thing possible: he tried to remove them with a fucking chainsaw. It worked, barely, but in the process he apparently messed up his finger. WARNING: Semi-graphic finger photos below.
By the way, I was highly suspicious of this entire activity before it started and wrote this the day before:
[Editor’s Note: Hold on — when did I voice my support for chainsaw use? I’m not saying I was 100% against it, but surely if you’d asked me about it, I’d have given a few notes of caution. Though maybe I did just say “go for it.” That is something I say often. -DT]
Unsurprisingly, he ganked his finger trying to remove the batteries. Here’s the next day, after he’d already been suffering from his messed up finger all night. For whatever reason, we didn’t immediately clock what happened:
It was a busy morning with a lot of news and it didn’t register here. In another slack room (this one for video, which is why our producer TMG was there), Jason again mentioned it, so we attempted to get him to go to get it looked at immediately.
Did he go? Nope. He finished his post. Here’s more than an hour later and he still hasn’t gone.
Anyway, his finger will eventually be fine and he also got some oxy out of the deal. BTW, here’s the X-Ray in full
I stand by this tweet:
Some times I feel like my job is just to keep them all alive. https://t.co/AnrWKFeiK8
— MattHardigree (@MattHardigree) April 12, 2023
I can tell how many of my fellow Autopians have smashed their thumb with a hammer and how many haven’t. Bic lighter + a needle = instant relief followed by searing pain.
Just going to repeat this from the thought I had at the time…
Even the most red-neckiest of rednecks that had the idea to remove those batteries by destroying them would have used a sawzall rather than a chainsaw.
When you move the needle into the territory that’s to the right of “hold my beer, I got this”, it’s time to take a moment and think about it.
Apparently this takes a certain membership level. Please clarify so i can upgrade or somehow reach this content
Not the right place to voice this, but alas… This whole chainsaw thing is and was a bad idea on every level. There were at least 15 better ideas that would have been just as good a clickbait (and less suggestive). Cutting batteries is NEVER a remotely intelligent thing to do under any circumstance. I was a little upset that you guys posted any of this, really. There is dumb stuff, then there is lead poisoning.
Yeah, we told you to poke a hole in it early. I did it to my thumb as a teen with a super heavy fridge door, and I wish I would have drilled the hole.
That being said getting a “free” oxy prescription is worth the Urgent Care visit I suppose. I didn’t need any painkillers for my thumb which went black like yours then I lost the nail, and it came back a while later after that.
That literally made my eyes water. Holy crap! Did anyone look at Jason slack jawed when he told them he was using a chain saw on batteries?
I said it in the slack, but I was kinda disappointed Jason didn’t come back from the ER with a pirate’s hook or one of those cool cyber arms.
Especially after the eating while driving comparo.
Must say, surprised they didn’t lance it. Had to have toe done after I smashed it. It was wet…the alignment rack was wet from dripping cars having been on it. Moved the front turntable. It slid off the rack on my toe. 50-60 lbs of steel plate…OMG..did a little dance..to the ER. Nurse pulled out a laser pistol, shot a few holes in my toenail..black blood came out..eww! But the pain was gone. So here’s the deal…The owner of the tires chain whose store it was came by while I was in ER for a safety inspection, report, blah, blah, blah…Got canned a week or so later…lol..that’s what I get get for trying to help! Should have stayed in my office!
Hope it doesn’t hurt too bad Jason. I dropped a speaker on my foot the other day and my big toe looks the same. Ouch!
First photo I thought “that’s a good smash, probably at least a fracture of some sort”.
Then the second photo with the cracked nail/blood came on the screen and it icked me out a bit. I’ve smashed fingers and hands before with little breaks and it sucks but it is what it is. These cuts and whatnot can get infected and swell in painful ways.
Glad you got a script, but be careful, I’m from the east coast and we have towns of zombies around here from that shit! Get on that Advil dual action baby!!!
Torch is taking a few too many risks here. Feel free to add to the list, because I’m sure I’m missing a few:
Stay safe Torch… you have a family and we need you around to keep writing with your unique take on things.
3&5 are my big concerns.
What the hell, man? I know this is America and going to the doctor is the fastest way to spend a Porsche (as a unit of money) on something way lamer than a Porsche (healthcare? ew), but I’m assuming you have insurance through…something? Here, Sally, the presidentship of the Changli Owners Club, IDK, something that should prevent you from avoiding the doctor entirely. You…pay yourselves here, right? Your finger going greyscale is a pretty good sign you should go to the doctor sooner, rather than later. Hell, you’ll probably be waiting long enough in the stupid waiting room to finish the blog post there. Get that over with earlier.
(Posted from my house, not at work, because of a stupid injury I’ve ignored because going to the doctor is frickin’ expensive. DO NOT BE ME.)
When I was 18 I smashed my right thumbnail while working construction in a refinery and it swelled up like that. We tried the hot pin through the nail to relieve pressure but it wouldn’t work. Then my mom (an ER nurse) comes home and has me soaking my thumb in ice water to numb it while she heated up a small nail on the gas stove. Next thing I know she’s got a hammer and is nailing my damn thumb to the kitchen table! I was convinced it went all the way through just by looking at it and was afraid to lift my hand. When I tried to pull the nail out I couldn’t but don’t worry, RN mom has another trick up her sleeves and out come the vice grips. She finally yanks that nail out of my nail (nail? nail?) and blood goes absolutely everywhere.
A couple of days later my thumbnail falls off leaving a goofy bruised bloody stump that took months to regrow. I walked around for months making a fist with my right hand to hide my thumb.
A couple of days after that I met this sweet girl and she asked me why I kept hiding my thumb and kept pestering me to let her see it. I hesitantly revealed my tender busted digit to her hoping maybe for a bit of sympathy. Nope. She got this giant sadistic grin from ear to ear and reached out and grabbed my thumb and SQUEEEEZED as hard as she could!!!
She’s now my wife.
I’m not sure whether to be more horrified with your mom’s nailing technique, or your (now) wife’s thumb squeeze.
Jason has become convinced that he is a world-renowned super-adventurer and cousin of Fenton Hardy, famous father of the Hardy Boys:
Scene: Casino de Monte-Carlo, Monaco
Croupier: Hello sir, how may I call you?
JT: Hardy… Fool Hardy. I’m here for the World Lead-Block Chainsawing contest, but… I’ve… I’ve forgotten where the competition is being held. Can you assist me, perchance?
Croupier: Ah, Messiuer, I’m afraid that doesn’t take place here in Monaco. You have confused “Monaco” with “Amoco”, the defunct oil company. That competition is held in Whiting, Indiana at the former headquarters where competitors stand knee-deep in a pool of leaded gasoline, purely for nostalgia’s sake.
JT: Amoco? Monaco? Ah yes I see. I suppose I should book a flight back to the US. Pardon me, but do you also see a pink dragon flying above your right shoulder?
Croupier: Oh, I’m sure that is just a side-effect of your “sport”.
JT: Sorry, sorry… what was I saying?
Croupier: I believe you were going to call the airline to arrange a ticket? (motioning to security) Sir, may these gentlemen assist you to your room and perhaps, help you also to find a pair of pants?
JT: Yes, yes, plants… indeed. Must find some plants… trees? Redwoods? Leadwoods? (begins making chainsaw noises)
Don’t mess with lead, kids, or it will mess with you.
Lead paint chips make for a most excellent candy.
If they didn’t want you to eat them, they wouldn’t call them chips.
“Eventually”? What did the urgent care doc end up doing?
To clarify, I’m not suggesting the UC doc was a hack. I had one resolve a baffling and intermittent issue with my leg years ago – dude was a rock star.
I’ll apologize for this in advance: it was kind of funny reading the Slack comments about the thumb vs the finger. 🙂
PS Sweet x-ray, bruh!
That is definitely your job now! Please keep our loveable leaders safe and please for the love of god hide all the chainsaws and buy them all PPE! Hell reuse the PPE from the safest driving foods video. I’m sure Autopian Labs would gladly loan them out.
Honestly, we should get Autopian Labs PPE for everyone.
Definitely do that for the employees, but it could also be a new line of merch!
Branded safety goggles, masks, and gloves should be fairly easy to produce. Tyvek suits would be a little more difficult but not impossible. 🙂
David would just end up wearing it as part of his regular wardrobe rotation.
That… is not the worst thing that could happen.
I once had a filing cabinet tip over and land on my big toe. Looked just like Jason’s finger. Just seeing that photo brought back a phantom pain…
Oh, and this isn’t the gross part. The gross part is in a few weeks when the nail falls off and leaves a big rough scabby mess…
I got my middle finger smashed by a fast-moving steel block in a physics experiment apparatus once. Unlike Jason, my nail didn’t burst so at the Urgent Care Clinic they had to pierce it with a hot probe to relieve the pressure. The pain was indescribable. And yeah, when the nail comes off, it’s reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum’s transformation in The Fly. Yuck.
The finger is painful and needed treatment, but ultimately not a big deal. Using a <Jasonism here> flapjacking chainsaw to cut into lead acid batteries is lunacy of the highest order. I wouldn’t do that even with full face masking and respiratory gear. All that lead dust flying around is really, really bad and that residue will eventually get into people’s bodies. I also hope Otto was nowhere in the immediate vicinity because as bad as lead is for adults, it’s extremely bad for kids.
I love the lunacy around here, but I just can’t adequately communicate how bad an idea that was. If cutting was required, using an angle grinder to cut the top of the center battery out with full PPE and then gently removing the plates and internals from the batteries would have to be a better way to go.
Please stay safe!
So much this. I’m here for the laughs but no one needs to get hurt.
Or go MAD
Go mad?